Top 10 Celebrities Who’ve Had Ghostly Encounters

After watching a scary movie, people often comfort themselves with the thought that “it’s only a movie”. It’s only acting after all. There are no real ghosts hiding in closets or vampires stalking dark alleys. No one knows this better than the actors themselves. Sometimes they play the bad guys, ghosts, demons etc. Then they take off their makeup and on-set clothing and turn back into their regular selves. However, some actors and other celebrities themselves have had run-ins with ghostly beings that were not props or part of a movie.

10. Dan Aykroyd

Dan Aykroyd is famous for playing many memorable movie and TV characters, perhaps the most famous being one of the parapsychology professors in the cult movie classic Ghostbusters that hit theatres in 1984.

Aykroyd confirmed that he found the inspiration for this role from his father and great-grandfather. Both men had a great interest in the paranormal and even held séances to try and contact those who have passed on. His great-grandfather, Samuel, recorded all of these attempts and his notes were found by his father Peter after Samuel died.

Peter then used these notes to write a book about ghosts, the afterlife and those who play a role in calling up the dead. Aykroyd shares this avid belief in all things paranormal. He even helped his father promote the book, calling it the encyclopaedia of all things related to ghosts, mediums and ghost hunting. He fully believes in mediums’ ability to reach the dead and communicate with them.

Dan has never had such an experience himself but confirmed in an interview that he believed Mama Cass was haunting his home and that she even got into bed with him. He went on to say that the spirit likes freaking him out by turning on his Stairmaster or moving objects around. He is also quoted as saying the reason he believes it is Mama Cass haunting his house, is because he felt the presence of a “big” spirit.

9. La Toya Jackson

La Toya Jackson’s main claim to fame seems to be that she is related to the late singer and performer Michael Jackson. In her own right however, she is also a celebrity that appeared on The Real World on MTV. La Toya, along with the rest of the Jackson family, was devastated when Michael unexpectedly passed away in 2009. Since then she has been keeping a relatively low profile, but has granted some interviews to speak about her brother. Or his ghost, at least.

Jackson has no doubt that the late singer is haunting her home. In an interview with Good Day New York she claimed that she heard tap dancing noises coming from an upstairs bedroom when no one else was in the house and also insisted that she “felt” Michael’s presence in the room.

La Toya also explained that she often feels a heavy presence surrounding her and even though she doesn’t see anything there is definitely something there. She also claimed that one of the security officers guarding her home told her he often hears tap dancing coming from a specific room in the house. Once they both went to the room where the noises sound up from, but there was no one there. Only the dog sitting in the corner, barking at nothing…

8. Christine Crawford

Christina Crawford, Joan Crawford’s adopted daughter, wrote a best-seller in 1978 about life as the daughter of a famous actress. Mommie Dearest was at the top of the NY best-seller rankings for a whopping 42 weeks and eventually the book was transformed into a movie as well.

As revealed in Mommie Dearest, Christina was abused by her famous mother while growing up. This caused her to forget or block out some of the terrifying supernatural things that happened in her home. What she clearly remembers however is that spirits manifested themselves in the house. There were also freezing cold areas inside the house that no one dared to venture into.

Christina was terrified by this, but was told that she had an over-active imagination. She had no one to confide in about her experiences, even after she seemingly saw the apparition of a little child in the house. Eventually she just left the lights on at night after she started to experience horrible nightmares on top of experiencing the terrors in her home.

7. Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus has gone from sweet child actress to wild child in a couple of years. No one seems to remember Hannah Montana anymore. Mention Miley and everyone conjures up an image of a protruding tongue and strange tweaking moves. Her music and she herself are very popular though and her tours are taking her all over the globe. It was during a tour through Europe in 2009 that she saw something in a hotel that scared her so much, she and her family immediately upped and left.

Miley told US Magazine that a London flat she was renting during the tour apparently came with a ghost or two. Her sister Noah was in the shower one evening when suddenly the water turned scalding hot and burned her skin. Noah screamed at the top of her lungs, causing Miley to rush into the bathroom to see her little sister looking as if she had been sunburned. The knob on the shower had inexplicably turned to hot without Noah touching it.

Miley herself saw a little boy in the bathroom watching her take a shower. She told the magazine that the boy was seated on the sink, just looking at her while nonchalantly kicking his feet in the air. Cyrus decided to look into the history of the flat and discovered that it was a bakery once before the entire building was turned into flats. The owner and his son lived there until the man died. Miley is convinced she saw the spirit of the son in the bathroom.

6. Sting

During the eighties, Sting wrote and sang the song Spirits In The Material World. Did he know what was to come or had he already experienced scary things and used it as inspiration for the song? Sting has previously claimed that he heard disembodied voices and saw objects moving by themselves and even flying through the air in one of his houses.

Perhaps the scariest experience was that he once saw a woman in his room with a child in her arms. The woman was standing in the corner of the room just staring at him. At first he thought it was his wife and child until he realized she was sound asleep next to him. Feeling terrified, he realized that this was an apparition he was seeing. At this moment his wife woke up and immediately saw the ghost as well. Then the figure melted away like nothing ever happened.

The house these things happened in is very old and Sting believes that the place exudes a strange energy. He said that he knows there are no such things as ghosts but he definitely experienced them (or something!) on a somewhat emotional level.

5. Michelle Williams

When Heath Ledger died in 2008, the world was shocked. He was only 28 and on the cusp of becoming a legendary actor. He had accidentally overdosed on prescription medicine and his lifeless body was found in a hotel.

Since then, Ledger’s character, and his ghost, has become a hot topic of discussion. Some claimed to have experienced his spirit on the set of The Dark Knight Rises. Others firmly believe that Ledger allowed himself to be taken over by the devil so that he could deliver a true-to-life performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Ledger had trouble sleeping during filming of the movie and it was then that he started taking prescription medication.

It seems that his troubles followed him into the next life. Michelle Williams claims that she has been haunted twice by the restless ghost of Ledger, who was her ex-boyfriend. Williams confided to her colleagues that she had been visited by Ledger’s spirit. Apparently his ghost came to her in the form of a dark apparition. She woke up after hearing objects moving around late at night and then saw it. She didn’t realize it was Ledger until the second time he appeared to her. Williams said that he apologized to her for not being able to help her raise their child. Michelle also went on to say that these experiences helped her through her grief.

Medium, James Van Praagh, also confirmed that Ledger’s spirit appeared to him one morning two weeks after he had died. James “hears” the thoughts of the deceased. He was shaving when Heath’s face materialized in the mirror. Ledger’s thoughts were that he had screwed up and he also thought about his daughter. Then he vanished.

Speculation was rife that Berry and Dandridge share the same facial features. The fact that Berry was born less than a year after Dorothy died just added fuel to the stories. It is thought that Halle Berry was the ultimate means to an end: winning an Oscar. In 1954, Dandridge was snubbed at the Oscars despite being nominated because she was African-American and discrimination was rampant at the time. In 2002, Berry won an Oscar, completing Dorothy’s goal.

This is of course crazy. However Halle Berry did experience the ghostly presence of Dorothy during the filming of the movie. In her own home no less! Halle was enjoying a cup of tea with a friend one evening when they both heard a strange noise coming from her bedroom. Upon investigation they found that the paper in which one of Dorothy’s dresses was wrapped in was rattling by itself. Halle and her friend ran out of the room. Adding to the creepy factor, before this happened Halle actually tried the dress on and it fit her like it was made for her!

Berry’s housekeeper also complained that someone kept pulling the vanity chair out. Every time she pushed it back and left the room, she would return to find it pulled out again.

On another night after filming, Halle woke up to the sound of boiling water. The sound came from the same room Dorothy’s dress was in. As she entered the room she saw a small doll dress floating mid-air right before her eyes. Halle freaked out and ran back to her bedroom. She meant to keep Dorothy’s dress as inspiration but after this event quickly returned it.

3. Corey Taylor

Corey Taylor is the frontman of Slipknot and a self-proclaimed atheist. This hasn’t stopped him from experiencing the supernatural. Taylor claims to have seen his first ghost at the age of 10. He and five friends were playing around in an old abandoned house when he saw an apparition.

Corey admitted that this experience changed the way he saw the world. He went on to say that after seeing the scary apparition, he had more ghostly experiences. He told the Los Angeles Times that he experienced a malevolent ghost once, but cannot be sure that it actually meant him any harm. Corey believes that ghosts are as confused about us as we are about them, because they are trying to figure out their new existence, mainly to no avail.

Taylor has written a book about all of his run-ins with ghosts. In it he mentions that there are ghosts of little children running around in his home as well. According to him the little ghosts move things around inside his house. They also freak out his friends by running up behind them, their footsteps sounding up on the wooden floors. Then they run around, there is nothing behind them.

2. Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp firmly believes that he was visited by the spirit of John Dillinger while filming a movie about his life. Depp spoke about his experience shooting scenes for Public Enemies in an interview. He said that he felt very privileged to be able to portray the notorious gangster and bank robber and also to be able to shoot the same gun out of the same window that Dillinger had years before.

Depp went on to say that it was a magical experience to be able to retrace John Dillinger’s footsteps and that he definitely felt his presence on set and while shooting scenes. Johnny even felt that the spirit of Dillinger approved of how he was playing his character. Out of the many, many movies that Johnny Depp has starred in, this was the first one during which he had experienced anything paranormal.

1. Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage is one of the most brilliant and also most eccentric actors in Hollywood. He starred in huge blockbusters such as City Of Angels, Ghost Rider and National Treasure. Nic has also had some strange experiences away from the movie sets.

Cage was once scared (almost) to death by a ghost with big hair in his uncle’s attic. When he was still a young man, he slept over at his uncle’s home in the attic when the door suddenly squeaked open. Nicolas saw a female figure with a big hairdo enter the room. Thinking it was his aunt, Cage spoke to her but received no reply. Only then did he realize that the figure he was seeing was definitely not his aunt. He screamed at the top of his lungs! To this day he is not sure exactly what he saw, but he never slept over in that house again.

As if that weren’t enough, later on Nic bought a haunted house that he could never bear to sleep in. In actual fact, he bought what is known as the most haunted house in New Orleans. The house originally belonged to Dr Louis Lalaurie and his wife in the 1800s. Rumor has it that the couple tortured and eventually murdered hundreds of slaves inside the house.

From the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s many incidents of the paranormal were reported. One resident reported seeing a headless man on the third floor of the house. Another man who used the house as a furniture store in 1932 inexplicably had his merchandise ruined more than once. Even waiting up for what he thought were mischievous vandals overnight, saw no result other than ruined furniture once again. While he was inside the house!

Perhaps the fact that human remains were still found under the floors in the 19th Century is what caused Nic not to want to spend a single night inside the house. Or maybe he saw something so terrifying that he couldn’t even talk about it.